


in vivid and morbid splendor

by rosesburnedalive



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, 007 Fest 2019, Angst, Banter, Canon-Typical Emotional Constipation, Hozier, I would tag this as a spectre fix-it but it really doesn’t fix anything, Post Spectre, Q needs to work some things out, Q's cats - Freeform, Self Destructive Behaviour, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-02 13:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19442611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesburnedalive/pseuds/rosesburnedalive
Summary: Bond left, Q stayed. It sounded simple right?It did, up until Q heard a knock on his door in the middle of the night.





	in vivid and morbid splendor

**Author's Note:**

> this was based on an anonymous prompt fill for the 2019 007 Fest that asked for a fic based on a hozier song. so this is mine, based upon '[From Eden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmWbBUxSNUU)'! thank you so much to the ever lovely [christinefromsherwood ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood) for beta-reading this mess, you are an absolute angel.
> 
> the title is from my own mushy brain-box

_“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”_

_― Anne Carson (Translator), Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides_

_“And you will arrive under a soldier’s black mantle_

_With the fearful greenish candle_

_And will not show your face to me._

_But the riddle cannot torment me for long:_

_Whose hand is here, under that white glove_

_Who sent this wanderer, who comes in darkness?”_

_— Anna Akhmatova, A Long, Thin House_

* * *

It had been another late night at Q-Branch. 

Q had only been back at his flat for an hour or so, unwilling to try to sleep through the buzzing of post-mission adrenaline, knowing full well his attempts would be futile. 

It hadn’t been a terribly complicated mission, though it had required Q to be on the ground earlier in the week and it had gotten a little messy: he was sporting a rather nasty black eye and a split lip. So, instead of sleeping, he curled up on his couch with a mug of tea and a paperback while Rimbaud and Lovelace cuddled at his feet. 

Q had become quite fond of paperbacks in these last few months. He liked the way they bent and that he didn’t feel guilty when he scribbled in the margins and underlined phrases that helped make sense of everything and nothing.

On his rare days off he now found himself in used-book shops and thrift stores alike, and would leave with his arms filled with tattered books. 

He didn’t have space for them all anymore; his meager bookshelf was stuffed full so they ended up stacked on tables and in piles on the floor.

It was all Moneypenny’s fault. 

She had come to giving him books since the whole debacle with Spectre, under the guise that she was getting rid of unwanted things from her flat. Leaving them next to his tea, slipping them into his bag, or just outright handing them to him. He’d started trading books with her and lending out his copies of old favorites to her. 

The last one she’d gifted to him was a well-loved copy of _The Unabridged Journal of Sylvia Plath._ He felt bad taking it and told her so. She’d insisted he keep it. 

“It’s yours now,” she had said, “and I think you need it more than me.”

So, he had taken it with no further complaints. And found himself devouring it.

_I'll never see him again, and maybe it's a good thing. He walked out of my life last night for once and for all. I know with sickening certainty that it's the end… Yet I liked him too much — way too much, and I ripped him out of my heart so it wouldn't get to hurt me more than it did. Oh, he's magnetic, he's charming; you could fall into his eyes… I wanted to know him - the thoughts, the ideas behind the handsome, confident, wise-cracking mask… His nearness was electric in itself. "Can't you see," he said. "I want to kiss you." So he kissed me, hungrily, his eyes shut, his hand warm, curved burning into my stomach. "I wish I hated you," I said. "Why did you come?" "Why? I wanted your company…Come here," he said. "I'll whisper something: I like you, but not too much. I don't want to like anybody too much." Then it hit me and I just blurted, "I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." He was definite, "Nobody knows me." So that was it; the end. "Goodbye for good, then," I said._

Q slammed the book closed and tossed it beside him, cursing Moneypenny’s name and waking Lovelace in the process. 

If looks could kill he’d be six feet under.

“Sorry, girl,” he said, throwing himself back on the couch. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and willed the months old thoughts of Bond away.

Besides the rain outside his window, London was quiet. 

Q liked the city at this hour. 

Calm and restrained in a way that it wasn’t usually. Witching hour of London tended to take on a mask of obscurity and arcane tranquility. The fog softened the edges of the city’s usual manic fervor, leaving only the dull ache of those still awake.

A weariness cloaked him with the same old issues that he’d always had — the same boring fragilities and anxieties that he’d been gnawing on for months. 

Bond left, Q stayed. It sounded simple, right?

Bond left for his happy ending with Madeleine Swann and Q stayed to pick up the pieces.

It wasn’t until then that he had realized — beyond his understanding of the events that led to Bond’s inevitable departure — that James was never really his to lose to begin with, but he had lost him all the same. It seemed perfectly fine for everyone else to acknowledge the departure of 007 but for Q to do the same seemed… wrong. 

As if his own yearning was encroaching on everyone else’s more pure and truer loss, that his was merely a poor replica of what grief should be. He had only known the agent for a few years before he’d left with Swann, and even so it was only through missions and banter contained within the parameters of thinly veiled professionalism.

So, when Bond had left hand in hand with Madeleine Swann — the keys to the Aston Martin dangling dangerously from his finger — to find his own personal Eden, Q had kept face. 

There had been life before Bond and somehow, someway — Q told himself — there would be life after.

He hadn’t had the time to tell Bond everything that he’d put in that bloody car or the endless hours he’d spent rebuilding it from the ground up when missions lulled or when his head needed a break from everything else. 

Not that he minded one bit. 

It just seemed like a waste for a car like that to be stifled into anything other than what it was built for: the chaotic everyday battle that was the life of a Double-0 agent and _not_ the mundane life James and Madeleine were surely living. 

Q imagined that Bond drove the two of them to the beach to bask in the sun and sip on apple daiquiris. Bond was probably gloriously tanned and as fit as ever, looking every bit like something out of a seven dollar romance novel with Madeleine Swann at his side. 

Imagining these things didn’t do him any good.

Q couldn’t force himself to hate Madeleine, though. She had only been swept up in everything that James Bond was, same as him.

But he wondered what it would be like if it were him in that car instead. If _he_ were the one allowed to trace the scars on James’ back or touch the calluses on his hands or wake up to his smile. 

Q existed in two places: here and wherever his fantasies took him. 

They hurt him in different ways and he wanted freedom from both; to want for nothing, to expect nothing, to depend on nothing. But his thoughts seemed hellbent on wandering back to things he could never have. 

Gods, he was pathetic. The enormity of his desire disgusted him...

If he wanted to, if he _really_ wanted to, he could find them. But he wouldn’t. 

It wasn’t even for selfless reasons like leaving Bond to his happy ending. He just couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

It wasn’t rejection that Q had felt when Bond had left but rather the deeper, more visceral disregard of Q’s self. That — to Bond — Q was merely a means to an end. 

So, no. Q didn’t care for James Bond, nor did he think he ever would. In fact, one might even say that he despised him. 

Lovelace leveled him with a look that suggested that she could read him like one of his paperbacks. 

“Stop giving me that look, you beast, I’m fine.”

A knock on his door startled him out of the staring contest he was having with his cat and he was up and by the door faster than he thought possible, sending Rimbaud and Lovelace scattering; the gun stored underneath the coffee table already primed for action in his hands. 

The peephole confirmed he knew exactly who decided knocking on someone’s door at this time of night was acceptable. As if summoned by Q’s own weakness. 

Q leaned against the door as if attempting to keep Bond out. Or maybe himself in. Either way opening the door seemed like a death wish; whatever reason this ex-agent had to come knocking on Q’s door in the middle of the night — hand devoid of Madeleine Swann’s — it certainly couldn’t be anything good. 

He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and willed Bond away. 

Bond knocked again.

Shifting the gun to one hand Q opened the door and pointed the barrel directly at Bond’s forehead. 

“You know, I’m not particularly fond of miscreants in black suits knocking on my door in the middle of the night.”

At least Bond had the decency to raise his hands at the sight of the gun.

“It’s really rather more of a navy blue.”

“What are you doing here, Bond?”

“Just came to—”

“To what? Thought you’d slither here from Eden just to stand outside my door?”

“Well,” he said, with all the charm the ex-agent was known for and a dangerous smirk dancing on his lips. “You could invite me in.”

Q lowered the gun and stepped back; this was a fight he was bound to lose and they both knew it. 

Moving like the snake he was, Bond slipped past Q into his flat, still the silent-footed agent he had always been and his presence — viscous and enticing — filled the room like a deadly fog. 

Neither of them said anything as they stood there, Q definitively not backing up as the ex-agent closed the door behind him, leaving the two of them close together in the dim lighting of Q’s flat. With nothing but silence and hallowed space between them.

Time seemed to slow and take notice as they both inspected one another through weary eyes. It had only been a few months since that fateful day in Q-Branch but Bond looked restless and tired and terribly, terribly beautiful.

Though something was holding Q back from breaking the quiet that seemed to push between the two of them. It remained, stretching and flexing and circling like a panther on the prowl, growing increasingly apprehensive and edgy with each moment that passed, waiting for one of them to falter. 

The space between them provided little comfort but if Bond was bothered at all, he didn’t show it. 

Q became hyper-aware of the fact that he’d essentially left the former agent pinned against the door, when said agent finally spoke:

“Nice pants.”

He looked down at himself and realized he was only in an over-sized Star Wars t-shirt and pink boxer briefs, and scowled.

“Did you come here to insult my sleepwear or is there a particular reason for your return?”

“Needed to give something back.”

And like Perseus raising the head of Medusa in silent pride, he held out the keys to that bloody car. 

Q snatched them away.

“Threw it into the Thames, have you?”

“Nope — drove it here, actually.”

“Outlast its usefulness then?”

“You’re mad at me,” Bond said, tilting his head and squinting at Q in a manner that suggested he thought Q was some sort of puzzle for him to figure out. There was nothing that Q would like more than to wipe that stupid look off his face. “Why?”

“Some spy you are.” 

Q turned on his heels and headed to the kitchen in search of something caffeinated. If he was going to have to deal with some two-bit, cocksure ex-agent sauntering into his flat in the middle of the night, hellbent on driving Q absolutely nuts, the least he deserved was something sweet to sip on. 

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“You certainly can,” Bond smirked and began to poke around the flat. “It’s nice to finally see where the notorious Quartermaster of MI6 resides.”

“How did you find me?” Q said, setting his gun down on the kitchen counter. He filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove. 

“I’m a spy, remember?”

Moneypenny, then. Damn her. He was going to have to exchange her laptop for one of those plastic Hello Kitty ones that teach you how to do maths, and hack her phone so it went off at 3am to the tune of Call Me Maybe. 

“Ex-spy,” Q corrected. Bond shrugged in a way that suggested that he thought that a moot point. “And a bad one at that. Speaking of which, how’s the girl? What was her name? Mikaela? Madison? I can never remember.”

“You do. Deception isn’t a good look on you, Q.”

“Then perhaps I’m in the wrong business.”

The menacing sounds of Bond disassembling Q’s gun at the kitchen counter filled the silence as Q pulled out a box of Harney and Sons Paris tea and two mugs from the cabinet. 

“How long are you back for?” he asked, not quite wanting to know the answer. 

“For good.”

Q braced himself against the counter.

“No, you’re not.” 

It was easier to talk to Bond without facing him. Which was stupid and cowardly, but Q thought he might have a lot more pressing things on his plate than the possibility that he might be a stupid coward. 

“What could you possibly mean by that?”

“You will meet a woman. You will fall in love. You will run away with her.” Q turned to face Bond. “You will lose her. You will always be a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “You will always come back because—” he forced himself to meet Bond’s eyes, “because this is all you have. You have already done all of this and you will do it again.”

The ex-007 stalked towards him, every bit of the predator he was trained to be, until they were almost chest to chest. 

Bond’s eyes — forget-me-not blue — were as cruel as death and closer than a kiss. But Q wouldn’t let it faze him. If there was one thing he knew he could handle, it was an agent with a power complex.

For a long time, neither of them did anything but stare the other down. The silence that descended between them was rich and full of Schrödinger's possibility. It swallowed up all the could haves, the would haves, the should haves. Q especially despised the should haves. 

“You,” Bond said, with no small amount of malice, “are a cruel soul.”

 _If only you knew, Bond,_ he wanted to say, _if only you knew._

“You asked me what I meant. I only told you the truth.”

The kettle whistling broke their glaring contest and Bond backed away slightly as Q finished making the tea. Q added cream and honey in both, knowing full well that Bond liked it plain. And that Bond knew that he knew.

“Here.”

Bond took it with a grimace but politely sipped at it as he began stalking around Q’s flat, while Q leaned against his kitchen counter. 

He let himself take Bond in fully now as the agent took stock of his flat. 

James was a little more tanned than he had been before he’d left but he looked tired and worn around the edges. He surely looked far better than when he’d come back from his last stint with death. He still held himself in that same sure-footed manner and, surprisingly, he didn’t seem to be harboring any injuries, but there were definitely at least two guns that Q could make out in the suit.

Rimbaud ambled in from Q’s bedroom, apparently in need of attention and not afraid of the agent in the slightest. In fact, the cat went right up to Bond and began demanding affection. 

Q stared at where Rimbaud was nuzzling against Bond’s leg.

“Traitor,” Q said, glaring at the cat.

Bond had the audacity to chuckle. 

“And who’s this handsome fellow?” Bond said, kneeling to pet the traitorous beast. 

“That would be Rimbaud. Lovelace should be around here somewhere, though she isn’t particularly keen on strangers.”

“A fan of French poetry I see, though I don’t recognize Lovelace.”

“I don’t suppose you would.”

Bond looked at him then, his usual stoic face betrayed a flash of surprise at Q’s continuous blatant attempts of shutting down any sort of good-humored conversation, before he tucked it away. 

Really, Q had no desire to fall back into their old selves. The banter; the raillery; the constant and inherent push and pull that was James Bond. All of it utterly exhausting.

“Ada Lovelace,” Q said to ease the tension, “mathematician and author. She’s thought to be the first computer programmer.”

Bond picked up Q’s book from where he had tossed it earlier on the couch and began to examine it. 

“The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.”

It was hard to watch James with his book. He was tender with it in a way that made Q jealous — of what he didn’t know. Whatever tenderness Bond contained was reserved for things he thought were precious or worth his time and he had made it clear that Q was neither. 

He ran his fingers along the cracked spine and fingered the worn pages that were marked and written on. 

The desire to snatch the book out of Bond’s hands washed over Q—to tear the pages up and throw the scraps into a fire and watch Bond burn with them—was overwhelming. Instead, he merely watched as James flipped through the pages to where Q had stuffed his bookmark and started to read out loud the last thing he had underlined. 

“‘Yes, I was infatuated with you: I am still... I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those.’”

Bond’s tenderness must have run out then because he dogeared the book and tossed it back onto the couch.

“Do you have anything harder than this?” he said, gesturing to his mug of tea.

The flip between the conflicting facets of Bond’s personality made his head spin and it took a few moments for Q’s sleep-deprived brain to make sense of what Bond had just said. 

He blinked as he tried to catch up. 

“I’m afraid that I only have a horrid bottle of Chianti.”

“Of course you would only have bad wine.”

Q rolled his eyes but took Bond’s half-drunk mug of tea back to the kitchen and poured it out into the sink and filled both his and Bond’s mugs halfway with the Chianti. 

When he got back, Bond had moved to the couch and was lounging there like he lived there. He took his mug gratefully out of Q’s hand. Reluctantly, Q took a deep breath and sat down next to Bond, tucking his legs underneath him and sipped at the mug cradled in his hands. 

Bond held out his mug and Q stared at it, confused. Rolling his eyes, Bond clinked their mugs together and downed the drink.

“You’re right, this is horrid.”

“If I knew I was going to have a petulant houseguest tonight, I would have gotten something better. I did warn you, in my defense.”

“I’m finding it hard to take you seriously,” Bond smirked, “given the fact that you are still in your pink boxer briefs.” 

Q looked down at himself. Shit. 

“That I am.”

He let his head fall onto the back of the couch. 

He could run away. France was nice this time of year. He had a getaway bag stored in the back of his closet. 

Did Bond ever think of him after _he_ ran away? Q liked the idea of Bond thinking of him; if he had Q hoped it hurt.

Suddenly a grey fluffball ran across Q and Bond’s lap and onto the back of the couch, where it perched. Q’s lap, now scratched up by tiny devil claws, stung like all hell. 

Bond fared far better but Q had the pleasure in seeing irreparable holes torn in his navy suit. 

“This must be the infamous Lovelace.”

Bond reached out to pet her. Q caught his wrist to stop him.

“Be careful, she may look pretty but she has claws and a temper to match.”

“Good thing I know how to deal with beautiful but dangerous things, then.”

Q met James’ eyes. They were as fierce as obsidian, glinting faintly in the dim light—like rosary beads. And beneath that fierceness, something ancient and tender as the rain outside.

Q merely hummed a dubious acknowledgment and turned away from Bond’s heavy gaze. 

“Nice mug.”

“Huh?”

Q looked at his mug. It was a drawing of a disgruntled cat with the words ‘You’ve cat to be kitten me right meow’ floating above it.

“Oh, uh, thanks. It was a gift.” No, it wasn’t. What was he saying?

He could feel his face flush; he was probably disastrously pink. 

Bond smiled at him with some semblance of honest amusement, layered heavily with something that Q couldn’t identify. He was so bloody hard to read.

A buzzing sound caught their attention. Q’s personal phone, buzzing from where he’d thrown it on the coffee table earlier that night. 

Shit.

Both of them scrambled for it but, of course, Bond got to it first. He held Q at bay and stretched his arm so the phone was impossible for him to reach. 

“ _Bond_ ,” Q groaned, trying desperately to grab at the phone. 

“Who’s Adam?” 

Shit, shit, _shit_. The night was out to get him, it seemed. He must have done something absolutely abysmal in a past life to warrant this. What was that about Paris again?

“No one you need to worry about, Bond.”

“Well, apparently you left your Doctor Who sweatshirt at his flat and if you don’t come and get it he’ll throw it away. Who broke up with who?”

“It was mutual.”

“So he wasn’t the one to give you the shiner.”

The black eye. Right. He had forgotten about that. 

“No, I got that on the job,” Q said, standing up. 

He ignored Bond’s raised eyebrow and headed to the kitchen to grab the bottle of Chianti. 

The flat was cold and the kitchen tile ice against his bare feet. Apparently, he wouldn’t get any relief as the ex-agent was on his heels and, surprisingly, Lovelace as well.

“Did you get the split lip on the job, too?”

“Yep,” Q said, popping the p. “Some mission complications, nothing major.”

James smiled at him then, familiar in more ways than one with avoidance. They were both high-functioning tragedies after all, and tragedies recognize their own. 

Q decided to forgo the Chianti and put the kettle on for more tea. Being drunk around Bond seemed like a dangerous idea, even if he was the one to open the door to let him in.

The kitchen was small but James was standing far too close and Q fully intended to put some space between him and the ex-agent. 

He felt like he was back in Q-Branch pre-Spectre again, like he was going to give in if James got too close — kiss him or punch him. The only reason he had gotten through it before was that he couldn’t decide which of those options would finally put him out of his misery. 

Probably James himself would put him out of his misery if he tried either one.

Those were his fantasies: kisses and bruises and James ridding the world of him. 

“You’re an arse.”

“Are you just figuring that out now?”

Q wondered what the repercussions would be if he poured his bottle of wine over Bond’s head.

“No, I figured it out months ago.”

Bond smiled and made of trouble.

“I’m surprised it took you so long,” he was coming closer, prowling, “you would think a genius like yourself would have figured it out far sooner.”

If James touched him right now, Q would run through his fingers like blood.

“Yes, well. I was a little bit preoccupied. Picking up broken pieces and all that.”

James’ hand reached up to Q’s face. Q knocked it away and slapped him. 

The slap hardly hit home, Bond having caught Q’s wrist in a punishingly tight grip before it could land. Really, Q didn’t know what he’d thought was going to happen. Q’s slap still managed to connect with the man’s cheek, though it was merely a brush of his fingertips, he still had the pleasure of seeing the ex-agent pause and gape a little at Q.

“Let go of me,” Q growled.

“What happened to you?” James asked softly. Firmly. His voice, deep and unyielding, it drowned Q. He drank it in like sweet wine and couldn’t keep James’ eyes anymore.

“Nothing I didn’t deserve.”

“Being miserable doesn’t make you interesting, Q.” The cock of Bond’s head worried him, his features strange in the half-light.

“You’re one to talk,” Q shot back, glaring.

When he tried to twist free, the grip on his wrist was firm and unyielding. Not tight enough to harm, but it captured Q’s attention all the same. 

Keeping him chained and contained and tame. 

If Q were a stronger man — not in the physical way, but in the way that seemed to matter — he would resist Bond further. Spit in his face, kick him, tell him off. But Q is a weak man, in the end. Truth be told. And the thought of losing the grip on his wrist pained him far more than the thought of Bond breaking his arm. 

“I think you just admitted to finding me interesting,” Bond said with a smirk. Q’s only answer was a glare. “Just let me look at it, Q. I’m not here to hurt you,” James murmured, reaching up with his free hand to take off Q’s glasses to get a better look at the bruises along his cheekbone. 

It couldn’t be a pretty sight; they had turned a mottled black and blue in the days since the attack. He tilted Q’s chin up with a finger.

 _You have hurt me,_ Q wanted to say. _You keep fucking hurting me._

A calloused thumb traced his cheekbone but he couldn’t make himself raise his eyes to meet Bond’s. 

It was too much. As nice as it was to have someone so close, no matter the context, it was overwhelming all the same. 

Ignoring his mind raising Cain at the thought of having someone so dangerous so close, Q let his eyes flutter shut and leaned, ever so slightly, into the touch; such a light surrender that he prayed that Bond wouldn’t catch it. This wasn’t affection, he told himself. Affection was not what Q was after, anyways. If Q wanted affection he certainly wouldn’t have fallen in love with James bloody Bond.

Gods, he was a tragedy. 

“First time seeing a shiner, Bond?” he said, his voice sounding far more composed than he felt. 

“First time having a shiner, Q?”

Q hissed through his teeth when James’ touched a particularly sore spot.

“I couldn’t count the amount I’ve had if I tried.”

“That’s concerning. Anything you’d like to share?”

Q turned his chin away from Bond’s grip and he, thankfully, let him go but — with his wrist still trapped in the ex-agent’s grasp — Q was still tethered to the man.

“I don’t need your concern and I definitely don’t need your pity. This isn’t a matter that I’m allowed to discuss with you, anyways; confidentiality and all that.”

“Did they hurt you anywhere else?”

“I thought I just said that I’m not going to discuss this with you.”

“Has that ever stopped me?”

James Bond was Scottish by birth and also — Q has come to realize — by nature, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised at his stubbornness.

“Q-”

“God, you really don’t know when to stop.”

 _Please don’t stop_.

Again, Q tried to pull free of the grip on his wrist, but the attempt was just as futile as the first. He pushed at Bond’s chest with his free hand and tried in earnest to pull himself free. Bond just let him struggle as he held Q’s wrist firmly until Q finally sagged forward in defeat.

“Steady, Q,” James whispered. 

They were close enough that James’ words ghosted against his cheek. 

Q worried his bottom lip between his teeth — not caring in the slightest about the wound there — in an effort not to melt into James’ arms because James’ wine stained lips looked soft and faintly bruised and far more intoxicating than any drink could wish to be. 

James’ eyes, stormy as pietersite, flashed with something Q couldn’t place.

“Stop that. You’re going to split it again.”

“I cared about you,” Q blurted because Bond’s eyes were blue and it has already been established that Q was a weak man. 

The words felt silly on his lips, seeping out like blood from a gaping wound; raw and meant to stay inside.

A look of surprise flashed over James face before he tucked it away. Within the falter he kept his grip on Q firm. 

“No, you didn’t.” he said, resolutely. “You cared about whatever idea of me you had built up in your head.” 

Bond was probably right about that, the bastard. At least in the beginning.

“And if I told you that I cared about you now, regardless. What would you say?” 

James seemed genuinely taken aback by this. Q felt himself go limp in James’ grasp, all of his energy gone, sagging not unlike some dejected doll with tears stinging in his eyes.

Did he love James? 

Masochistic Epistemology: whatever hurts is true.

“I care about you still,” he murmured, stepping closer to James. He held his gaze; the snake of Eden couldn’t have been more enticing. “Even if it’s against my will.” 

And there it was. The pin dropped, the tree felled. 

This time, when Q attempted to twist his wrist out of Bond’s grasp, James let him go. Though, without the hand gripping his pulse point, Q felt untethered and weightless like a caged bird freed. 

Caring for James Bond was like sharing a room with an open fire.

He would constantly be drawing you in. And you’d constantly be stepping too close. And you knew he could be nothing but trouble ― that there was nothing good about it ― that there was absolutely nothing that could ever come of it.

But you did it anyway. And then you got burned.

The worst part of it all was that Bond was aware of it all and that he was also absolutely powerless to stop it from happening. He could only watch and tear himself into pieces.

“Do you realize, you insufferable bastard,” Q huffed a breathy laugh, clenching his fists at his sides and pointedly not looking into James’ eyes, “that I could have gone through life just fine if you’d — if you’d just had the decency to _leave me alone_?” 

James stalked towards Q and Q instinctually stepped back and kept stepping back until his back hit the wall, trapping him. 

Was this what it meant to be crushed? To be pressed between two things so heavy and morose, so that his very being was being broken, oppressed, pounded, and ground until the only thing left of him were the bones of his ribs and that loose tongue of his, that never seemed to be able to restrain itself?

And, God, maybe it was. And if that didn’t utterly delight him.

The smirk playing on Bond lips was as dangerous as any gun wished to be.

James leaned closer, close enough that his words ghosted against Q’s lips as he whispered:

“I like being insufferable; it makes you take notice.”

Q surged forward to kiss James, sliding his hands to hold the curve of James’ jaw like tipping a chalice to drink his fill. He tasted of honey and citrus and tea and nothing at all like James Bond should. 

Both of them moaned into the kiss and Q could feel a hand in his hair.

Was this ecstasy or just the absence of grief? He didn’t care. Whatever it was, it was far more preferable to its predecessor. 

The line between poison and medicine is subtle after all; the Greeks used the word ‘pharmacon’ for both. 

It was a bruising kiss nonetheless. 

There was no spark, no sense of home or belonging. No explosions or fireworks or singing choirs. 

It was just a kiss. A simple surrender to the longing looks, the could haves, the would haves, the should haves that had plagued Q ever since he’d handed over the keys to that bloody car.

Every sting of fingernails and bite of teeth seemed to say ‘forgive me, please, for all the things I did but mostly for the things I did not.’

Q wanted to tear the flesh off of every place that gave him trouble. 

No more lips curling dangerous smirks, no more shoulders shifting under dress shirts, no more of that stupid curve at the base of his spine. To feel and be felt. He wanted to lose control completely. 

And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to tragedies like themselves, than to lose control completely?

James took control of the kiss in a way that made Q whimper and clutch onto his navy blue suit and Q kissed him back hungrily. There was nothing nice about it. Q didn’t want anything Nice. If there was one thing that Q surely deserved, it certainly wasn’t “Nice”. 

But it was everything Q wanted. They did not kiss, they devoured. They did not touch, they seized. 

Maybe he could tempt James to come to bed with him if he asked nicely.

Breathless, and a little tipsy from the kiss, Q whispered when they finally broke apart:

“ _Cubitum eamus_?”

James’ smirk was the only answer he needed.

* * *

It was far past witching hour when Q finally slipped out from underneath his covers; the sun—not quite out yet but getting there all the same—cast a golden glow onto his bedroom, making everything soft, hazy, and silken. 

The only thing he could think about was that his neck was killing him. He supposed it was a minor price to pay in the end. 

When he stood he looked at James, still asleep and sprawled out on Q’s bed (and wasn’t that a thought) with only the sheets to cover him. 

He looked almost peaceful. 

James was terrifyingly beautiful, in the way that only tragedies usually were. Sans dancing smirk, sans glinting eyes, sans guns, sans almost everything that made him dangerous. 

Almost. 

_Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it,_ he thought. 

But Bond certainly wasn’t anything like an innocent flower, nor was a serpent half as dangerous as him.

Gods, when did he become so desperate so as to start quoting Shakespeare? He was half asleep and wanting and that was a dangerous combination all on its own. 

He padded out of his room, away from temptation and away from whatever was between him and Bond now. 

There was something wretched about whatever it was; something so precious that he didn’t dare break.

Why had James come here of all bloody places? Maybe he pegged Q as an easy lay. He couldn’t find it in himself to regret anything, though he wished he could. It would make everything a hell of a lot easier. 

James hadn’t even told him what happened between him and Madeleine. It didn’t matter, in the end. James sure as hell wasn’t going to be Q’s happy ending; he wasn’t going to be Q’s happy _anything_.

As quietly as he could, he started to gather everything he would need. 

Q coaxed Rimbaud and Lovelace into their traveling kennels and from the back of his closet, he grabbed his getaway bag — which he had filled with enough false ids, gadgets, knives, and catnip to get him through anything. 

The coat on his back felt weighted, his bag like lead, as if both were trying to keep him rooted where he stood. 

After deliberating for a few moments, he grabbed the book. It had been a gift, after all. 

He held no particular sentiments for the flat, be they positive or negative. Still it seemed as if he was admitting defeat in leaving it behind. But staying seemed infinitely harder. 

The keys to the Aston Martin and his flat were left on the kitchen counter along with a note comprised of the only words he could think to leave James Bond from the Quartermaster of MI6.

_You’re a tragedy, 007. Keep the flat. -Q_

Closing the door behind him, he felt like Chopin must have when he tied a packet of his own letters with a ribbon and inscribed them as “Moja Bieda”. My sorrows. 

Q looked down at where Bond had gripped his wrist. 

There were no red marks, no bruises, no sign that James had ever even touched him and he couldn’t tell if he wished there were. 

Today, once more, life sunk its rotten teeth into Q’s flesh and tore. 

He pulled his sleeve down and didn’t look back as he stepped into London’s early morning drizzle. Running away seemed like the coward’s option but if his misery was the only thing keeping him company he might as well wrap it around himself in some semblance of armor.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact that I realized about myself: I am utterly incapable of writing anything without referencing or quoting Donna Tartt. there are a couple of my favourite lines of hers floating around in here. 
> 
> I made Q a lot angrier than I intended - which is okay, I suppose. I also wasn't planning on ending this the way I did but every time I tried to write it differently it felt off. anyways, I really liked writing something based on a hozier lyric; should I do it again? should I continue this story? I feel kinda sad leaving Q like this :( and I have a few cool ideas of where I could take it (please let me know)
> 
> stalk me:  
> [main tumblr](https://bananastarberry.tumblr.com/)  
> [the00qlibrary tumblr](https://the00qlibrary.tumblr.com/)  
> [art tumblr](https://owlpip.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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